


patience (only for you)

by akc



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Haircuts, Light Angst, M/M, Snow, dimitri laughs a lot in this, typical repressed romantic feelings nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21608371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akc/pseuds/akc
Summary: “I’m not a professional hairdresser,” Felix prefaces, running his fingers through Dimitri’s hair in the most tentative manner possible.“I know,” Dimitri says again.“So don’t expect much.”“Just cut my hair, Felix.”
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 15
Kudos: 191





	patience (only for you)

It is snowing in Fhirdiad.

This, of course, isn’t that abnormal of an occurrence. It’s a cold city in a cold region which means that snow is generally a common thing. The only thing notable about the snow patterns is that sometimes there are harsher storms than others, but that’s about it.

Today just so happens to be one of the harsher snowfalls. When he looks out of his study window, Dimitri cannot see much at all besides lumps of snowflakes being blasted in all sorts of directions. The visibility is so low, in fact, that he cannot tell whether or not anybody is outside. Hopefully not, though; it’s difficult to do anything productive when the weather is like this without also complaining and sighing and complaining. 

And Dimitri tries to complain as little as possible. Sigh, sure—but not complain.

Though, speaking of complaining—he can’t help but feel a little ruffled about the fact that Felix is late, which is odd. He was supposed to be here at _least_ ten minutes ago, and although he more or less operates on his own schedule, he’s not really one to be late to things unless he’s doing it on purpose which, to be fair, he might be doing right now. Dimitri asked him earlier in the day to meet him in his study just a bit past one o’clock, and now it’s—it’s definitely past then. 

But Dimitri can be patient. He can be patient, and he _will_ be patient, and to distract himself from Felix’s purposeful lateness he continues working through the letters he needs to write.

At least today hasn’t been bad so far. 

Days can go one of three ways for Dimitri: bad, neutrally, or emptily. In his head he imagines it as a scale, with neutral being in between _bad_ and _empty,_ just like it might be in between _law_ and _chaos_ or _favorable_ and _not favorable._ Bad days are bad, obviously; they’re like walking on top of repulsively hot embers for miles and miles through a thick fog that always feels as though it’s hiding something that could kill him. Bad days are bad.

Empty days aren’t much better, but at least with those he doesn’t have to worry about getting _emotional_ . Empty days are like sitting at the bottom of a cave in the dark, accompanied only by the sound of water _drip drip dripping_ from the ceiling. Empty days are empty.

Neutral days are the nicest of the three. They’re not bad, but they’re never perfect. He can feel things in a more or less satisfactory way. And, well—there are getting to be more neutral days than bad and empty ones. That’s something!

Dimitri doesn’t like to think about it too long, but he’ll take any neutral feeling that he can get. Hopefully, when Felix comes, it’ll help with that. He likes seeing Felix. He’s always got something honest to say.

And speaking of Felix: he’s definitely here, because Dimitri now hears the door being manhandled.

“Hold on, I locked it,” Dimitri says, covering up the letter he’s been writing with some other pieces of paper before he stands and moves to the door, which still sounds like it’s being manhandled.

He unlocks the door and opens it up and is greeted by Felix staring at Dimitri in a way that not even a scholar could describe.

“There’s no snow on your head,” Dimitri says, thoughtlessly.

“Why would there be snow on my head?” Felix’s face contorts into an even more angled way than it was before. “I have better things to do than play outside.”

“Right, of course.” Dimitri waves his hand, deciding against mentioning the lateness—at least for the time being. He steps to the side. “Well, come in.”

“Fine,” Felix says, as if he hadn’t shown up out of his own free will. He stands in the center of the room and looks around, as if he is playing some sort of game and needs to find clues. 

Dimitri gently shuts the door.

“Well?” Felix says once they’re facing one another. “Why am I here?”

“I need you to do me a favor of sorts,” Dimitri replies, voice the absolute epitome of patience. Patience only for Felix.

Felix’s lip curls down and his brow furrows. It might be in response to both Dimitri’s statement and his tone of voice. “I’m immediately inclined to say no.”

If Dimitri responds to that, he knows that the conversation would stray elsewhere, so he instead ignores it and gets directly to the point. “I’d like you to cut my hair.”

Felix stares.

Dimitri stares back, but definitely with a nicer look on his face than Felix has.

“I have to wonder why you think I would ever want to do that,” Felix finally says, after a moment of silence that was longer than necessary. 

“It’s not really a matter of you wanting to or not. It’s moreso me directly asking you to do it and hoping you’ll agree to it from—”

“From?”

“—from the goodness of your heart,” Dimitri finishes, not breaking eye contact, because he’s very good at that now. Felix, however, is still clearly not so good at it, because he looks down at the floor, trying to pretend his cheeks aren’t dusted pink.

“Ugh,” he says. “Such a stupid thing to ask me. Just do it yourself.”

“But that isn’t what I want.”

Felix has managed to resume eye contact after what appeared to be a frustrating moment of self-reflection. “Oh, so this is about what you want and what you don’t want, is it?”

“No, it isn’t.” Dimitri shakes his head and sighs. “This is truly just about me hoping you would indulge me, I suppose.”

“Indulge you.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Felix rubs his hands over his face, seemingly frustrated. He’s quite strange like that, Dimitri thinks—the way that he becomes irritated when people show him calmness, and then satisfaction when they don’t. Who knows if he will ever be able to break away from that behavior. 

“Fine,” Felix suddenly snaps. “Fine. I’ll cut your gross hair.”

Dimitri smiles. “Ah, see? That’s exactly why it should be done.” He moves across the room, shoes loudly clacking against the ground until he steps onto the carpeted portion. “I’m glad you feel the same way that I do.”

Felix’s face falls, but only for a moment. It’s enough to be noticeable, though, and Dimitri wonders if he feels bad about what he has said. It didn’t hurt Dimitri all too much—after all, he’s well aware of how all-over-the-place his hair looks—and he hopes Felix doesn’t think about it too hard. He’s always saying things that he doesn’t mean, anyway. 

“Here, then,” Dimitri says, handing Felix a pair of cutting shears. He sits down on the bench behind him, which faces a mirror, although he doesn’t plan to look into it just yet. He’s not very sure that he would be able to look at himself in a mirror for the duration it takes to cut his hair.

Sometimes, looking into a mirror makes him feel too— 

“What makes you so sure that I won’t give you an even worse haircut?” Felix suddenly asks while opening and closing the shears. 

“I suppose you could say that I trust you,” Dimitri replies, easy. 

Felix stares. He’s been doing that a lot.

In lieu of a response, he waves his hand upwards to signal Dimitri to stand back up, which he does. Felix takes the small bench and carries it halfway across the room, closer to the window, before setting it down on the ground. 

“I knew you wouldn’t want to… face the mirror. But I wouldn’t be able to stand behind you if we—you—kept the bench over there.” Pause. Frown. “So.”

Dimitri feels like he might double over with laughter. Felix is so funny about everything that he does—so funny with his displays of care and affection, so funny about receiving it as well. Although perhaps _funny_ isn’t an appropriate word, perhaps it’s more like—doubtful. It would certainly explain why he is the way he is.

But Dimitri didn’t ask Felix to come up here so that he could think about his personality, he called him up here so that he could cut his hair. 

He says nothing and sits on the bench that Felix had moved.

“This would be so much easier if your hair was wet,” Felix mumbles, probably louder than what he had intended.

“Would you like to wash my hair?” Dimitri asks, unable to help himself. Behind him, Felix makes some strange and complicated sounds. 

“Shut up. That’s not what I meant,” is all he manages to say. It doesn’t have any bite, though; despite his typical waspish-Felix behavior, most of what he says holds little to no maliciousness these days. It’s almost as if he’s tired of it.

“I know,” Dimitri says. “I was only joking.”

And, as he usually does when he has no idea how to respond to things, Felix provides a _hmph_ and nothing else. Dimitri can hear him snipping the scissors in the air, probably to test it out or something, which is thoughtful. 

“I’m not a professional hairdresser,” he prefaces, running his fingers through Dimitri’s hair in the most tentative manner possible. 

“I know,” Dimitri says again.

“So don’t expect much.”

“Just cut my hair, Felix.”

“Right.” 

Dimitri sighs and continues to wait. Felix seems… nervous. As much as he was joking earlier about giving Dimitri a terrible haircut, it’s obvious that he doesn’t want to fuck this up _too_ bad. 

He tugs a bit at one part of Dimitri’s hair and fiddles around with the scissors for a moment before proceeding to do the first snip. Dimitri has absolutely no idea how much he’s going to cut off, and he can’t gauge it just by that one— 

“You’re like a rock,” Felix says out of nowhere, disturbing whatever that thought was going to be. 

Dimitri blinks. He almost turns around, but decides against it. “Um… pardon?”

“Because you’re so tense.” To prove his point, Felix pushes the heel of his hand against Dimitri’s shoulder. “Just sit like a normal person.”

“I am sitting like a normal person,” Dimitri says, but then he slumps his shoulders a bit because maybe he isn’t.

Felix goes back to cutting his hair. “You’re not, but whatever. It’s not my fault if you have permanent back problems.”

For some reason, this gets a laugh out of Dimitri. “You speak as if I am an old man.”

“No, I _speak as if_ you won’t get problems related to this later on.” 

“So you’re concerned about my long-term health?”

“That’s—” Felix exhales despondently, stopping himself before saying anything more. “Shut up.”

Dimitri laughs again, quiet and amused. He doesn’t say anything for a while; he only listens to the thoughts in his head and sound of his hair being cut. 

He’s not really sure where he and Felix are with respect to one another. It was so easy, back when they were students—it was so easy to contain silly teenage emotions into their stomachs and pretend like they didn’t mean anything. In fact, Dimitri is _certain_ that almost everyone was doing that; then, during the war, it didn’t feel appropriate to think about anything besides the thing that was in front of them, and so the thoughts fizzed away. 

Well—that’s what it was like for Dimitri. Maybe not for the rest of his… friends. Classmates. Ex-classmates. 

But now, both he and Felix are adults. Both of them are tired. Both of them have rougher hands than they did when they were younger. They cannot continue to entertain these thoughts like children. Probably.

Felix’s hands feel nice in his hair. 

“Your hands feel nice,” Dimitri then says, not really thinking much about it. Clearly, though, he should have, as Felix stops what he’s doing and removes them cautiously.

“Do they?” he asks, sounding as if he has never realized that he has hands.

“They do, yes. That’s what I said.”

Felix whacks his shoulder and goes back to cutting Dimitri’s hair, forgoing any other reply. This time, though, he’s definitely starting to make a show out of what he’s doing—the scissors move much slower, and Felix even takes a moment to simply comb his fingers through Dimitri’s hair, definitely not under the guise of continuing to cut it.

“Maybe we should talk,” Felix says, unsure. “About some things.”

Dimitri hums. “You’ll have to elaborate.” 

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Can’t say that I do.” 

Silence follows. Dimitri briefly wonders if he’s ruined his chance at _talking_ , but Felix continues on after a couple of seconds. He clears his throat. “About you and me.”

“Oh, would you like to settle our unresolved issues?”

“I hate the way you phrase everything,” Felix says. “But yes. That’s sort of what I was referring to.”

“To be fair, we haven’t had many discussions with each other since the war has ended.”

“Yeah, I _know._ You’re always busy.”

Dimitri sighs. “And you never want to talk about anything.”

“Well, I want to talk now.” Felix chops off a particularly big handful of hair. Dimitri can only imagine what it looks like right now. 

“Okay. Then go ahead,” Dimitri says, glancing down at the hair all over the floor. He supposes it would have been better if they had laid out something on the ground so that it would be easier to clean up, but it’s too late for that now. 

There’s another long moment of silence. Dimitri understands; he’s not exactly sure what Felix is planning on saying, but considering how tense he is right now, it’s definitely not something that’s easy for him. This, at least, gives Dimitri a moment to close his eyes and focus on the haircutting, as opposed to… everything else. 

The way Felix is handling him is much different now. It’s—nicer, perhaps. He’s taking his time.

“I’m glad that I didn’t lose you,” Felix finally says. “You’re such an idiot. You made me worry so much. For years I was concerned about you, getting—fucking—stress hives about it.”

Dimitri raises an eyebrow. “Really?” he asks, feeling bad about interjecting but too curious to not ask.

“No,” Felix says. “That isn’t the point. Do you understand, though? Do you understand how worried I was? I was convinced, for a while, that I had… lost you.”

A piece of blond hair flutters to the ground. Dimitri stares at it, thinking hard about what Felix is telling him.

“Come on, say something,” Felix mumbles, a hint of impatience in his voice.

“Ah, sorry.” Dimitri touches a hand to his own chin. “I suppose… well, I’m glad to be here with you. I’m not sure if that means much. I was very—” He pauses, trying to think of how to word what he wants to say. “I hadn’t realized how concerned you were.”

“I know that everyone around here likes to think that I have the emotional capacity of moss on a rock, but I don’t.” Felix drops his hands to his sides. “Do you have smaller scissors? I need to get closer to your head and these are too bulky.”

“Um, there should be some in the drawer,” Dimitri says, pointing in the direction of the vanity where he was previously seated before Felix had moved the bench. “And—I know. I know that you’re not without emotion, and I apologize if it came off as though I was implying that.” He rubs his face. “I just wasn’t thinking at all, back then. Generally.”

“Yeah, I know,” Felix says, returning with a smaller pair of scissors. He goes back to the spot he was at before and sighs; Dimitri can feel his breath warm on the back of his neck. “What I’m trying to emphasize is… despite that, I’m still… happy you’re here.”

Dimitri chuckles as if he’s laughing at his own little joke. “Like I said, I’m happy too. I hope we can move forward in a good direction.”

“Dimitri, you don’t understand what I’m saying,” Felix mutters, sounding frustrated and serious at the same time. 

“Oh, uh—please explain what you mean, then,” Dimitri replies, uncertain. He can feel all of his muscles tensing up in anticipation. He suddenly thinks back to the days when he was a student, back to when he and Felix were both students and when they would stare at each other a little too long after training and— 

He realizes that Felix still hasn’t spoken. And he’s not cutting his hair anymore, either. 

“Felix,” Dimitri says, and he wonders when Felix's name began sounding like a windchime when spoken aloud. 

From behind him, Felix puts the scissors down on the table Dimitri was earlier writing letters at. He rests his hands on Dimitri’s shoulders. They’re unsteady compared to how still he usually holds them, which is not normal.

“Turn around,” Felix instructs. 

Dimitri does as he is told. He immediately meets Felix’s eyes once they’re facing one another. The air is stagnant all around them. 

Dimitri notices, with the sensation of a stone dropping into his stomach, that Felix has screwed his face up in a painful combination of sadness and anger. He cannot remember the last time he has seen him like this, and, lost, he simply says, “I’m sorry, Felix.”

“Stop apologizing for stupid shit,” Felix quickly says. “You act so helpless when you start doing that. Instead just look at me. Do you see me? Do you see how I feel?”

“I—yes.”

“Good. Remember it. Remember… my face. Remember your worth. You have worth. Don’t forget it, because it's frustrating.”

Dimitri is speechless, He sits there, staring with his mouth slightly agape, until one side of his brain compels him to stand up and stop looking like he’s just had all his memories wiped. 

“I’ll remember,” he half-whispers, not sure what to do with himself now that he’s standing. He can see the snow still falling out the window just behind Felix and he wonders if it was some kind of omen. 

Perhaps he should stop thinking in omens. 

He looks back to Felix, whose eyes have gone all hard now, whose face has gone all rigid, whose lips have gone so unsteady, and in that moment—in that moment Dimitri understands how long Felix has been carrying these emotions by his neck.

“Oh, Felix,” Dimitri says, voice soft as snow, “I’ll remember. I promise.”

He lifts a tentative hand up to Felix’s face and smooths his cheek with his thumb, smiling kindly. A smile only for Felix.

“You have such monstrous hands,” Felix mutters, less so as an insult and more as something to fill the air with. He reaches up with his own hand and places it over Dimitri’s.

“I know.” Another smile. “Terrible, aren’t they?”

Felix supplies another _hmph_ and then leans in and kisses Dimitri before he can reply. It takes him completely by surprise; he has to take a step back before he gets himself together and stands up straight. 

Felix, however, is quick to move away. “Don’t fall over, idiot,” he grits, without malice. Dimitri makes an apologetic face and moves his hand from Felix’s face and down to his waist in an attempt to be less stupid and more comfortale; Felix does similar, wrapping his arms around Dimitri with a half-agitated sigh. “You ruined the moment.”

“Very sorry. I do hope I can make up for it,” Dimitri says, pressing his lips against Felix’s again so that he won’t ramble and so on. It seems to work just fine, as Felix sighs calmly and Dimitri can feel him relax in his arms ( _finally_ ), a sign that he’s giving in. Guard down. 

After a moment they break apart. _This all feels so elementary_ , Dimitri thinks to himself. This is just about exactly what his younger self would have imagined him to act like. 

“Stop staring into space,” Felix says. He dusts off some lingering hair from Dimitri’s shoulders; it falls down and adds to the litter on the floor. 

Dimitri briefly does not know how to act. He decides to bring up the haircut. “Um, okay.” Pause. “May I see what my hair looks like?”

“Sure.” Felix blinks a few times. Apparently he had already forgotten about that. He spins Dimitri around— _more manhandling_ —and leads him over to the mirror, which is not necessary, considering Dimitri has feet and knows how to walk, but he doesn’t comment on it. 

Dimitri looks at himself in the mirror once he’s planted in front of it. He _really_ looks at himself, trying to understand his physical appearance, which is something he has yet to puzzle together. Sometimes he doesn’t recognize himself—and it’s frustrating, having to accept that he may never be fully able to do so. 

But—this isn’t what he should be thinking about. Dimitri shakes his head and reaches up to touch the ends of his hair. It’s similar to the way his hair used to look but the sides are longer and fit his face better. 

“Thank you,” he says, dropping his hand and continuing to study himself in the mirror. “It’s very good.”

Felix exhales. “Yeah, okay. Now stop staring at yourself before you get an aneurysm.”

Dimitri knows that he’s right and turns his back to the mirror. He wonders whether or not Felix is going to bring up their kiss; he’s acting as though it hadn’t happened. 

If that’s what he wants, then—

“Oi.” Felix snaps his fingers. “You keep blanking out on me. Changed your mind about the haircut?”

Dimitri appreciates the lightheartedness in his tone despite the obvious worry in Felix’s eyes. He gives a little laugh before saying, “No, no. I was just thinking about something silly.”

“It didn’t look like you were thinking about something _silly._ ”

“Felix,” Dimitri says, reaching for the other’s hand, sick of speaking in circles, “Won’t you have dinner with me?”

And as if he were a puppet, Felix opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it, all in a very comedic fashion. His eyes are fixed on their hands, looking at them like he is a child who has discovered what a balloon is. 

Just for show—and because he wants to see a reaction—Dimitri lifts up Felix’s hand and presses a kiss to it. He glances up to see crimson spreading all the way across Felix’s face in a manner that, to many, might be considered unattractive, simply because he tends to horrendously wrinkle his nose whenever he’s embarrassed. 

“Please?” Dimitri asks, smiling with kindness that doesn’t match his physical appearance. 

Even though he could and _would_ swat Dimitri’s hand away, Felix doesn’t. It isn’t like him, and Dimitri finds that to be incredibly sweet. He attempts to give a more pleading look—at this point, though, he already figures what the answer will be. 

“Fine,” Felix says, trying to be grumpy about it. “Fine. You better not make me stay too long.”

“I’ll do my best,” Dimitri replies. He gives Felix another kiss—this time on the temple, because it’s easy to reach thanks to their height difference—and receives some spluttering noises in response. 

Dimitri laughs. He feels human. 

**Author's Note:**

> i am very hung up over dimitri's hair. regardless, thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> i'm on twitter: [here!](https://twitter.com/bloomedvillain)


End file.
